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£1 Billion to Be Invested in UK Broadband by British Government

Well this is new. Business Secretary Lord Mandelson today announced a £1 billion Government Investment in the UK’s digital and broadband infrastructure.

Amongst it’s three primary objective, the fund will ensure Rural communities and hard to reach areas are connected, the investment has an ambtious goal of ensurnig at least 90% of the country is supplied with high speed internet.

The “Next Generation Fund”, raised through a new Landline Duty, will provide the UK with a world class communications network to bolster innovation and services in digital content.

“By upgrading our networks we will put the UK at the fore of rapidly developing technologies which will bring jobs, boost business potential and grow our digital economy.” Lord Mandelson said

The objectives of the Next Generation Fund are:

To support Digital Britain’s aim to roll out next generation networks to at least 90% of the UK by 2017;

To support economic growth by incentivising market investment in communications infrastructure to meet the needs of businesses and households;

To maximise links with the Government’s Universal Service Commitment – a parallel broadband investment programme to ensure every community has access to 2Mbps broadband connection by 2012.

Government is now consulting on the most effective way to deploy the investment and will soon appoint a procurement team to oversee the delivery and management of Next Generation Access.